


It Just Won't Be Right Otherwise

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [17]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Post-Winter Cup, Pre-Extra Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Cup changed <i>everything</i>, but maybe, at the same time it changed nothing between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Just Won't Be Right Otherwise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viridianova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viridianova/gifts).



> Tried to name it like one of the episodes, but think I failed. Nevertheless, please enjoy!

> _“Damn it, Tetsu, Kagami! You guys won against us, didn’t you? If you can’t even defeat Rakuzan, I’ll have your heads!”_

* * *

 “Sooo… we won.”

Aomine valiantly tried to control the tic rapidly developing above his right eye, and then gave it up for lost. “I _know_. I _was there_ ,” he stressed instead, absently spinning the basketball in his hands as they walked along. Yes, Kagami defeated the entire Generation of Miracles, just like he’d sworn to do from the start, but did he _have_ to rub it in?

Kagami didn’t shoot back a retort immediately like he was wont to do, which was very unusual behaviour. Aomine slanted him a sideways look, only to see a tiny pleased smile playing at the corner of the other boy’s lips.

“Yeah, I heard you yelling.”

Aomine scowled automatically. He didn’t even remember most of what he’d been shouting, swept up in the frenzied pitch of the crowd in the last forty seconds of the game, but Kagami’s name had definitely featured heavily. Possibly sprinkled amongst phrases like, “if you don’t win I’m gonna kick your ass so bad”, “get up, Kagami, _get your ass off the floor right now_ , you can’t let it end like this”, and “you have the best _damned_ captain ever that man has balls of steel”.

He was pretty sure he did actually say (scream, more like, if he was honest with himself in the safety of his own head) that last one, if only because Imayoshi looked _really_ affronted when they got up to leave.

Whatever. As if anyone could disagree on that last point, when Hyūga was literally the very reason why Seirin even won in the first place. Even Kise – hell, any of them – would have trouble replicating a three-turned-five-pointer, even under normal circumstances.

“You must have taken one too many knocks to the head during that last game,” Aomine said instead. “There’s hundreds of spectators – no way you could have heard me all the way down the court, and besides, weren’t you in the ZONE?” His voice didn’t so much as tremble, and Satsuki had already been sworn to secrecy for life not to tell anyone else that Aomine had cried when he first realised what True ZONE was. The ZONE he was used to would block out all distractions; spectator noise should have been one of the first to go.

The smile on Kagami’s lips grew.

“True, in a regular ZONE, you’re alone,” Kagami agreed casually, “but in a True ZONE, you’re hyper aware of everyone who’s important to you, and that awareness’s not just limited to the court. I could see everyone and everything – the ball, the referees, my teammates, my opponents.”

Aomine’s heart was hammering inside his chest, so loud he was sure even Kagami beside him could hear it, but it didn’t – couldn’t – drown out Kagami’s next word.

“You.”

With tremendous effort, Aomine forced himself to breathe normally, even though his lungs were seizing like he’d just played a full match.

“You know,” he finally managed to say, “now that you’ve gone and told me the secret to True Zone, you won’t be having that advantage the next time we meet on the court.”

Kagami didn’t call him out on the change of subject, which proved that he was either secretly a saint like Satsuki, or (more likely) as oblivious as Kise. “Yeah?” he scoffed. “Bring it on, we’re going to beat you anyway.”

_We._

Not I.

Aomine shook his head at himself. “Whatever. Anyway, weren’t you supposed to return my basketball shoes today?”

“Well… about that…” Kagami scratched his head, an almost sheepish look on his face, and Aomine suddenly had a sinking feeling about the whole thing. “I may have… uh, that is to say… between Kaijou and Rakuzan, they’ve completely worn the shoes down?”

“ _That was my favourite pair of shoes!”_

Kagami found himself being shoved down the road by a seething Aomine.

“You’re getting me a new pair. Now.”

 

 


End file.
